Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

On 26 October 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, on the margins of the ASEAN Summit, President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim signed two complementary instruments structuring the US-Malaysia economic relationship: (i) a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Cooperation to Diversify Global Critical Minerals Supply Chains and Promote Investments, establishing quarterly working-level meetings on bilateral exploration, extraction, processing, refining, manufacturing, and recycling, plus shared commitments on streamlined permitting and protection from non-market policies; and (ii) a legally-binding Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) covering goods (chemicals, machinery, electrical equipment, metals, vehicles, dairy, horticulture, poultry, pork, rice, fuel ethanol), digital trade, services, and investment. Under the ART, the United States maintains a 19% reciprocal tariff on Malaysian imports (with carve-outs for products receiving 0% under EO 14346) while Malaysia commits to refrain from banning or quota-restricting exports of critical minerals or rare earths to the US, ensure no restrictions on rare-earth magnet sales to US firms, and grant extended operating licenses to US partners. The ART enters into force 60 days after exchange of notifications of completed domestic procedures.

Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 of the European Parliament and of the Council on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements, signed 23 October 2024 and entering into force 10 December 2024. The CRA is the first EU statutory cybersecurity regime covering all hardware and software products with a direct or indirect data connection placed on the EU market, imposing essential cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment with CE marking, mandatory vulnerability handling, and 24-hour early-warning notification of actively-exploited vulnerabilities to ENISA. Main manufacturer obligations apply from 11 December 2027; conformity-assessment-body notification provisions apply from 11 June 2026 and reporting obligations from 11 September 2026. Penalties reach EUR 15M or 2.5% of global annual turnover.

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule expanding the scope of the Iran Foreign Direct Product (FDP) rule in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement the "No Technology for Terror Act" (Public Law 118-50, Division N), signed by President Biden on April 24, 2024. The expanded rule extends EAR jurisdiction to additional foreign-produced items destined for Iran — including a broader set of items derived from U.S.-origin technology or software, or produced by plants/components that are themselves direct products of U.S.-origin technology — and requires a BIS license for their export, reexport, or in-country transfer to Iran. The rule also provides specified exclusions from the otherwise-applicable license requirements. The rule became effective on July 23, 2024 (publication July 26, 2024).

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a final rule (FR Doc 2024-08622; Docket 240417-0112; 89 FR 30119) amending the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to expand the product scope of two Foreign Direct Product (FDP) rules — the Iran FDP rule and the Russia/Belarus/Temporarily occupied Crimea region of Ukraine FDP rule in 15 CFR 734.9(f) — to cover the entirety of the Common High Priority List (CHPL), an HTS-6 list developed jointly with the EU, Japan and the UK that identifies items used in Russian weapons production. The CHPL scope adds basic commercial-grade microelectronics (integrated circuits, RF transceiver modules), test/manufacturing equipment for electronic components, and CNC machine tools to the perimeter, requiring a BIS licence when these foreign-produced items are exported, reexported or transferred to Iran, Russia, Belarus or occupied Crimea. The rule was issued in response to Iran's 13 April 2024 attack on Israel and Iran's ongoing military support for the Russian war in Ukraine; it became effective 18 April 2024 (Federal Register publication 22 April 2024) with a transit grace period for in-flight shipments until 20 May 2024.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1781, published in the Official Journal on 18 September 2023 and in force from 8 October 2023, establishes the EU Chips Act: a three-pillar framework targeting 20% of global semiconductor production by 2030 (up from approximately 9% in 2022) by mobilising EUR 43bn in public and private investment. Pillar 1 (Chips for Europe Initiative, EUR 3.3bn committed from EU budget) funds R&D, pilot production lines, and design infrastructure. Pillar 2 creates a fast-track permitting regime for "Integrated Production Facilities" (IPFs) and "Open EU Foundries" (OEFs) that qualify as being in the Union's interest. Pillar 3 establishes a supply-chain monitoring mechanism and grants the Commission power to mandate priority orders from designated facilities during a declared semiconductor crisis.

Loi n° 2023-973 du 23 octobre 2023 relative à l'industrie verte (the Green Industry Law) is France's first comprehensive industrial-policy framework since France 2030 (2021). Published in the Journal officiel on 24 October 2023, it pursues three objectives: (i) accelerate the siting of strategic industrial projects on French territory, (ii) channel public procurement toward "virtuous" companies, and (iii) mobilise private savings for green-industrial CapEx. Its centrepiece is the new "Projet d'intérêt national majeur" (PINM) status, an exceptional procedure that fast-tracks urban planning, environmental permitting, and grid connection for projects deemed strategic for ecological transition or national sovereignty (gigafactories, hydrogen electrolysers, advanced semiconductor fabs). The law also creates the Plan d'épargne avenir climat (PEAC), a long-duration retail savings product reserved for under-21s and earmarked for European green-industrial financing, and codifies a 2023-2030 national green-industry strategy.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) established a new Iran Foreign Direct Product (FDP) rule and created Supplement No. 7 to Part 746 of the EAR, effective 24 February 2023, to address Iran's supply of UAVs to Russia for use against Ukraine. The rule adds twelve HTS-6 codes covering UAV-relevant components — aircraft engines, processors, capacitors, memories, and radio navigation equipment — many of which are EAR99 items outside existing ECCNs, requiring a new licence for exports and reexports to Iran. Simultaneously, the rule expands the existing Russia/Belarus FDP rule to cover these same items, closing a gap where foreign-produced items derived from US technology could transit to Russia via Iran without triggering EAR licence requirements.

France 2030 is a €54 billion public investment plan unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron on 12 October 2021 to fund breakthrough innovation and reindustrialisation across ten strategic priorities — small modular nuclear reactors, green hydrogen, low-carbon transport (incl. two million EVs/year), food/agritech, twenty drug therapies for cancer and chronic disease, cultural industries, space, deep-sea exploration, semiconductors and electronic components, and robotics/digital (AI/cloud). Two cross-cutting rules require 50% of investment to flow to decarbonisation and 50% to emerging innovative players. Operationalised from the 2022 budget law, the plan is coordinated by the Secrétariat général pour l'investissement (SGPI) under the Prime Minister and delivered by ANR, ADEME, Bpifrance and Caisse des Dépôts / Banque des Territoires.

Decreto-Legge 15 marzo 2012 n. 21 (GU n. 63 of 15 March 2012), converted with amendments into Legge 11 maggio 2012 n. 56 (GU n. 111 of 14 May 2012), establishes Italy's "Golden Power" special-powers regime — the foundational statute authorising the Italian Government to impose conditions on, veto, or prescribe remedies for corporate transactions in strategic sectors. The decree marked Italy's transition from a golden-share model (applicable only to privatised companies) to a sector-wide golden-power model applicable to any company carrying out activities of strategic relevance. Administered by the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri (DICA), the regime has been progressively extended from its original defence + national-security + energy/transport/ communications scope to cover 5G, cloud, critical-raw-materials, financial-credit-insurance, agri-food, healthcare, media, space, and AI through a series of amending decrees from 2019 to 2026.